T'wolves back on top

MANTECA - Allie Walljasper hoped to guide Sierra High to four Sac-Joaquin Section softball titles during her tenure as the Timberwolves' starting pitcher.

Stephen Roberson

MANTECA - Allie Walljasper hoped to guide Sierra High to four Sac-Joaquin Section softball titles during her tenure as the Timberwolves' starting pitcher.

It was a lofty goal, yes, but not unbelievable, especially after she led Sierra to the Division IV championship as a freshman two years ago. Last year, the Timberwolves came up short, losing to Oakdale in the section finals.

But Walljasper, The Record's All-Area Player of the Year, and the rest of the Timberwolves bounced back, won the Valley Oak League and swept their way through the Division IV tournament, beating league rival Kimball twice to win the program's second championship in three years.

Sierra coach Nick Olmo, who has posted a winning record in each of his seven seasons at Sierra, is The Record's All-Area Coach of the Year.

It's impossible to call Sierra's 2012 season a failure.

The Timberwolves finished 18-6-1 and went 11-3 in the VOL, finishing third. They returned to the Division IV championship game via the losers bracket and beat Oakdale once before losing the decisive "if" game.

"I was looking at winning it all four years, but unfortunately last year it didn't happen," Walljasper said. "That just made me more hungry to get that win this year. Losing hurts more than winning feels good. When we lost that game, we were all disappointed. But we bounced back."

Walljasper and the Timberwolves bounced back in a big way. The 6-foot-1 junior went 18-2 with a 0.47 ERA, 227 strikeouts and 24 walks during the regular season. In 19 starts, she allowed more than two hits only five times.

In games in which she pitched five or more innings, she tossed nine one-hitters, one no-hitter and nine shutouts.

"She's definitely matured," Olmo said. "When she came in as a freshman, she wasn't used to the pressure of the big game and that type of thing. Over the years she's progressed to the point where she doesn't seem rattled when she gets into a tough situation.

"Even if she throws a bad pitch, she recovers well. She doesn't need that pumping up you usually have to give to a young player. She's able to right her own ship."

Walljasper wasn't as dominant in the playoffs, but she got the job done in each of the Timberwolves' four games. She beat Los Banos 6-3 and Ceres 7-2 on the same day to send Sierra to the semifinals.

On May 17, she beat Kimball in the semifinals. After the Jaguars rebounded to advance to the finals out of the losers bracket, she tossed a shutout, striking out 10 in a 4-0 win.

In seven seasons with the Timberwolves, Olmo never has posted a losing record.

He's a combined 135-49-4 with two league titles and two section championships. Since 2008, Sierra has finished among the top three in the eight-team VOL and won at least 11 of 14 league games every year.

All of those years have been good, but this season was special.

The Timberwolves went 25-2 overall, 12-2 in league, and won both the VOL and section championships for the second time in three years. Cal-Hi Sports honored Sierra as the state's Division III Team of the Year.

While this year's team wasn't as good offensively as in 2011, this season the Timberwolves had more options, Olmo said.

"This year's team was a little deeper than some of our past teams," he said. "It was the depth on the bench that helped us out the most.

"We had bats on the bench, we had gloves on the bench, so we weren't afraid to switch things up and put someone in the lineup who was hitting well at that particular time."

Olmo said his program has benefited from the Valley Oak League's emergence as one of the section's most competitive softball leagues.

"East Union and Oakdale are always competitive, Kimball's really emerged the last couple of years, and there's teams like Manteca that can do some things when you least expect it," he said. "It's a really strong league from top to bottom."